A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

If your train's on the wrong track every station you come to is the wrong station.

Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.

... we are all terribly alone no matter what people say.